Tag Archives: hp

Whitman: One Write-Off Too Far

December 16, 2012 – 11:18 pm

Tweet  Meg Whitman’s efforts to turn HP around follow a proven script. But, in her efforts to frame future results against a background of past misdeeds, she might have gone one excuse too far and engaged in a potentially embarrassing fight against Mike Lynch, Autonomy’s founder. Turnaround Artist Manual – Chapter 1: Walk in with [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware | Comments (9)

Losing The Plot

October 14, 2012 – 7:16 pm

Tweet  It’s a beautiful sight when, year after year, a company stays true to its original idea. But when a business loses the plot, we witness a sorry spectacle, an expensive slide into mediocrity. Every wayward company is wayward in its own way: Accountants masquerading as product planners; wannabe visionary execs jealousy trying to prove [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware | Comments (9)

HP’s PC Addiction

February 26, 2012 – 10:39 pm

TweetWhy is HP still in the PC business? It must be for the sport, because the money isn’t there. Looking at the quarterly figures released this past week, we see PC revenue down 15% year-to-year, with a low 5.2% Operating Profit: HP can explain. In the earnings release conference call (transcript obligingly provided by Seeking [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware | Comments (29)

How Bad Boards Kill Companies: HP

September 25, 2011 – 8:58 pm

Tweet‘A good Board can’t make a company, but a bad one will inevitably kill it.‘ Thus spake Barry Weinman, the Gentleman Capitalist, when I joined the VC brotherhood. He meant to tell me to watch out for co-investors on the Board of companies in our portfolio of investments. And he was right. We, Vulture Capitalists, [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware | Comments (39)

HP’s Tortured WebOS Positioning

July 10, 2011 – 6:29 pm

TweetAs an old HP fan, the rebirth of WebOS is painful to watch. Palm, after missing the ‘‘App Phone’’ transition was effectiv ely taken over by an investor group led by Elevation Partners. They promptly installed Jon Rubinstein as CEO, banking on his successful Apple experience to breathe new life into Palm. He did: In [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware | Also tagged | Comments (51)

WebOS Everywhere

March 13, 2011 – 6:22 pm

Tweetby Jean-Louis Gassée Where have we heard a similar mantra? Despite their apparent divorce from Microsoft, it sounds like HP’s brains have been infected with a mutation of the “Windows Everywhere” virus. Let’s recap. Late April 2010, HP acquires Palm for $1.2B. In July 2010, then-CEO Mark Hurd tells us he didn’t buy WebOS just [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware, Uncategorized | Also tagged | Comments (30)

HP’s Board Gets No Respect

October 11, 2010 – 3:20 am

Tweet. And rightly so. You recall: Last August, HP’s Board of Directors dismissed its wunder-CEO, Mark Hurd. Well-loved by Wall Street, although not so much by employees, Hurd turned HP around after the lackluster Fiorina years. He made acquisitions, cut costs, and put the company at the very top of the IT industry. But HP’s [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware, software | Comments (8)

HP’s Board of Directors: Redemption or More Insanity Ahead?

September 19, 2010 – 6:42 pm

TweetHP’s Board of Directors has accumulated an impressive record of bad judgment calls, the latest being the lame lawsuit against their recently deposed CEO, Mark Hurd, who quickly joined Oracle as Co-President and Director. The History Once a revered Silicon Valley icon, HP was arguably the first worldwide success to emerge from pre-war Stanford where [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in hardware, Uncategorized | Comments (11)

Curious Summer

August 29, 2010 – 4:14 pm

Tweetby Jean-Louis Gassée Nothing much happens in August, we thought. Wrong. Our three-week break has been filled with a number of “interesting” events. Curious Yellow Let’s start with Mark Hurd’s exit from HP after five years of great financial performance as CEO. If you missed the fireworks, you can get a refresher in this Business [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Posted in mobile internet, software | Also tagged , | Comments (14)